EXCLUSIVE: The US TV rights to the UEFA Champions League for seasons 2018 through 2021 have been acquired by Turner Sports and Univision in the United States, according to a World Soccer Talk source who is close to the situation.

FOX Sports, the current rights holder until the end of the 2017/18 season, lost the English-language TV rights to Turner Sports in a very competitive bidding process that included ESPN. Meanwhile, the Spanish-language rights were acquired by Univision Deportes.

World Soccer Talk understands that ESPN placed bids for both the English-language and Spanish-language rights, while NBC Sports decided not to bid. We understand that FOX Sports bid on the English-language rights but passed on the opportunity to bid on the Spanish-language rights.

In addition to the UEFA Champions League TV and streaming rights, the deal also includes the rights to the UEFA Europa League.

FOX Sports has been the English and Spanish language rights holder in the US and Caribbean for the UEFA Champions League since the 2009-10 season and Europa League since 2012-13.

In soccer circles, Turner Sports is best known for its television coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup that was beamed live from Italy and broadcast on TNT. Turner Sports is the division of Turner Broadcasting System (a Time Warner subsidiary) that’s responsible for sports broadcasts on Turner channels such as TBS, TNT, TruTV and CNN en Español. In addition to those networks, Turner Sports also NBA TV on behalf of the National Basketball Association.

A Turner Sports spokesman declined to comment about the news. Likewise, a Univision Deportes spokeswoman declined to comment at this time.

Beginning with the 2018-19 season of the UEFA Champions League, the first under the new rights deal for the US, Champions League games will be scheduled at 1pm and 3pm ET kickoffs instead of the customary 2:45pm ET start times. The new kickoff times will allow broadcasters to televise double-headers of Champions League games instead of several games being played at the same time.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

This is shocking. Where does Fox go now? World Cup and Bundesliga are it? I love Bundesliga but I’m not a typical American and don’t see it growing here unless we get an amazing contingent of American nationals playing there.

This could be good news. Fox Soccer broadcasts too many games on FS2. Just hoping Turner decides to show replays of game later in evenings too or use some of their other channels for audience to have choice which game to watch, especially for the Europa league games. Wonder if Turner will use Int’l commentators or hire own. For their studio wonder who they will bring in to host?
It’s too bad ESPN couldn’t get rights to CL but let’s see how Turner does.

This is a good point. And, unfortunately, I’m doubtful of the likelihood of replays of games being on their own website–that would have been one of the big benefits of NBC or ESPN–which might be even more important because I’m also guessing there will be fewer replays of games on Turner’s own networks (compared to Fox Soccer Plus).

John has different sources than I have and he may have been able to glean more information from his contacts after I broke the story.

The bidding process is often very secretive, so it’s difficult to find out who made bids and who didn’t. UEFA is the only one that knows everything in this case.

BAMtech is part-owned by Disney (which also owns ESPN). If BAMtech had won the rights, they would have shown the games across ESPN OTT. However you slice it, ESPN, NBC Sports and FOX Sports all lost out on the bidding for the rights.

By the way, although this site and Sport Business Daily site both refer to the rights purchased as Champions League rights (and of course, that is the major property included), the rights purchased include Europa League and UEFA Super Cup.

I’m not sure how to take this news. My worry is will Turner even show all the games here in the U.S.? The only channels they have are TNT and TBS. Some people have Turner South. Lets hope Turner Sports don’t follow Fox with Gus Johnson and put Marv Albert in the booth.

I don’t think you should worry. They are well-equipped to handle it. They own TBS, TNT, TruTV, TMC, all the CNNs, Cartoon Network and a few others. Even if they only use TBS, TNT, and TruTV that’s six live matches a day with the new double header format starting in 2018. They could stream all the matches on the TBS or TNT apps or create a separate streaming app for the tournament like their March Madness app which they also now own and operate.

Ehhh I would prefer Shaq and Ernie really to your heroes Wynalda, Lalas, Twellman etc…. Shaq was at least great in his sport, can be funny and actually has won the same number of UEFA champions league games as those 3.

Sorry I know you MLS freaks love them but they are as bad as pundits as they were players, Lalas and Twellman especially were garbage pub league players who are only legends to MLS worshippers and the league was even worse then which is saying a lot. They all have played in the same number of UEFA champions league games as you and I, they shouldn’t be anywhere near the coverage.

Freaks? TNT is going to ruin the UCL and the euro files are going to be the ones that suffer. America will never adopt a euro league as their own or care. America hates soccer and that’s why its going to TNT or whatever. Enjoy your 7th rated sport here.

Tim,
You should study things a little before writing something so ignorant.
Things have changed in America since an old geezer like you were a young person.

Turner spent a huge amount of money to get the European Champions League, because of it’s popularity with the young adult population both men and women. They need that demographic.
In the 12-30 year old age group, with both males and females, not only is soccer the most played team sport in America these days, but it is also these days the most watched team sport on cable.

The NFL gets good ratings with young guys, but there are only 17 weeks of NFL games in the regular season, with one game per team per week, along with just a few playoff games per teams who make the NFL playoffs,
Pro soccer is played more often with a lot more games each year which gives more opportunities to watch it on cable.
And kids and young adult Americans these days watch European soccer, as well as North American soccer.

Things have changed .
Obviously the Hispanic population has grown alot which accounts for some of the growth in soccer, but also, (unlike in the past decades), these days children throughout the country in all classes and ethnic groups, in the metro areas and in the small towns, now play soccer, in the schools, and in youth leagues. They know the sport, and no how difficult it is to play it well, and they are therefore more appreciative of the skills of the professional soccer players in the pro soccer leagues. And they like the sport, whether it be a 4-3 game or a 1-0 game, if it is played well. The quality of play in soccer is what mattes to most soccer fans..
Increasing numbers of adults of all ages, not just the kids and young adults are starting to watch it more also. They sometimes watch it not only with their buddies, but also in some cases with their kids or grandkids.
Soccer in the U.S. is considered a wholesome sport, based on skill, not necessarily the size of a player, but on the agility, athleticism, and skillfulness.
And soccer isn’t bogged down and slowed down with annoying ads and continual stoppages of play like some of the North American team sports are,

Once people get used to watching a fluid sport like soccer without all the ads and timeouts and huddles and between innings,etc, they like it better, more often than not..

New MLS teams are continually being added, and selling out in markets throughout the North America
Also the popularity of the great European soccer leagues, (the best soccer leagues in the world), continues to grow in the U.S..

People who know American sports well, and know a little about the changes in the modern American population, including with the young, know how much soccer is growing these days in the U.S..

So the next time you post on this board, know what you are writing about, instead of being another stupid, ignorant old American hick geezer who knows very little about modern America , and what it watches and does,

I worry about this since Turner doesn’t have a dedicated sports channel. I highly doubt they will have reairs on TV and won’t show the magazine shows. How’s its going to show Champions League and Europa League matches during the NCAA Tournament. They have games on TNT, TBS, and TruTV all at the same time starting around noon.

There is a lot to worry about here with Turner taking over the English-language rights. Like most, I’m no big fan of FoxSport’s coverage of the UCL but if Turner does not add a streaming service for overflow matches, we may longing for the day’s of Fox.

First and foremost, Turner is not going to dedicate 3 channels to the matches. Two is about as much as we can hope for. Prime time replays and showings of other matches will likely not happen as Big Bang Theory reruns will outdraw CL matches by a factor of 10. Another negative is lack of partnership between Turner and Univision. By Fox sub-licensing matches to ESPN, you had a divide that created a wide range of matches between FoxSports-1; FoxSports-2; Fox Deportes; ESPN2 & ESPN Deportes. Now we can expect both TNT (or TBS) and Univision to be showing the same marquee match. Expect a lot of crossover.

But let me try to be positive. The rights do not kick in for another 18 months. That is a lifetime in today’s technology. Also, AT&T is in the process of purchasing Time Warner which owns Turner. Since AT&T owns DirecTV, we could see a return of all the matches on DirecTV as we have in years past in the 480-level channel category. But in the end, I think what we see from Turner/AT&T is a big rollout of the product with even a separate “UEFA Champions League and Europa League” streaming platform. Hopefully a free one. It’s just that, without it, we are going to be looking back at the days of UCL on FOX with a lot of nostalgia.

That is sort of similar to the way it is now though, Univision will have at least two channels going in Spanish, Deportes and Unimas, I’m not sure they would use the main OTA channel with other popular shows they have going at that time. The Univision deportes app is pretty good, I would say it is better than Fox and NBC apps. Right now Barca and Real Madrid games are always on one of the Spanish and English channels at the same time. The NCAA app turner uses for that tournament is also very good, once again much better than Fox Sports. Who knows if they will use that or something similar for the CL but if they do it would be a positive.

My biggest worry with this is rooted in TBS’s sub-par baseball coverage since they got partial rights a couple years ago with a sometimes-Sunday afternoon game and even a League Championship Series. Some of the decisions they’ve made with announcing teams has been poor (Ernie Johnson is a very good studio host, but not play-by-play guy) and the production has been pretty woeful. There’s a lot out there about this; it’s pretty well-documented amongst baseball fans.

Champions League coverage should be pretty hard to screw up, though we all saw Fox do their best to ruin it over the years. Using the world feed commentators is a smart move, so I hope they just go with that, especially in lieu of using their own guys from a studio here in the U.S. It just isn’t the same, no matter who’s doing the call. And I also hope they attempt to emulate NBC’s studio coverage, which is nothing fancy, just knowledgeable, thoughtful professionals doing their jobs (stunning how hard it is to achieve this in any sport, though!).

If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to follow and see what moves Turner does make leading up to the fall of 2018.

I agree Turner’s MLB coverage leaves a lot to be desired. However, if their CL/EL coverage is more like how they cover the NBA (which is top notch) or the March Madness tournament – they should do reasonably well.

This is a fascinating announcement for so many different reasons from who participated in the auction (+ how much they bidded) to why Turner so aggressively went after these rights.

On one hand, Turner could bring a ‘fresh’ approach to covering the Champions League and the Europa League much like NBC did when they acquired the Premier League. They’ve got the channels and streaming infrastructure (Turner & NBC have a partnership regarding this) to adequately show the games – it’s just they present them + what type of additional coverage (studio programming, replays, etc) they’ll offer which will determine how viewers will feel about this long-term.

On the other hand, this further expands how many channels viewers need to have access to in order to watch football on TV. For example, one would need access to all of the NBC channels + either Extra Time or the NBC Sports app (EPL), FOX/FS1/FS2/Fox Soccer Plus (FA Cup), beIN Sports (EFL/EFL Cup) and now a combination of TBS/TNT and/or TruTV (CL/EL) just to watch all of the competitions English teams are playing in

Sub licensing is the old way of doing business (and Fox were the only entity still practicing it). The new way is the NBC/EPL way. I think we sooner see Turner build a comprehensive product and follow the NBC path. We’re talking comprehensive studio pre/post match panel and big streaming support. The more I think about it the more excited I get at the prospects. My only fear is the repeated mistake all new soccer broadcasters make of placing American commentators with little experience/excitement in the booth. There are some good ones and don’t want to dismiss them all but have to admit I would prefer Int’l Commentary on the matches themselves. We have some good analysts that can fill the panel roll and give it an American flavor.

I agree that sub-licensing is going out of fashion. However, Turner might have to sub license some of their rights due to the fact that the 2nd leg of the Europa League Round of 16 clashes with their 1st round coverage of March Madness – TBS, TNT & TruTV would all be airing games while those games are happening. I doubt they would do what NBC does with CNBC & MSNBC in airing games on CNN nor do they want to only air an entire matchday of games online.

No need for Turner to sublicense. Turner got the UEFA CL because Turner needs a product with the young male demographic that UEFA CL delivers.

Furthermore, Turner NEEDS UEFA CL to bolster truTV, which needs more sports besides one week of college basketball each year.

Turner has the option to put overflow games on TBS, TNT, and possibly HLN if desired.

Bottom line: Turner needs UEFA CL more than FOX does.

(Just like the last time UEFA CL rights in English changed hands in the U.S. FOX needed UEFA CL to bolster FOX Soccer Channel, whereas ESPN had no need to keep UEFA CL because ESPN and ESPN2 have other programming options lined up.)

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There is no reason for FOX to keep the UEFA CL and the UEFA EL anymore.

FOX has shelled out millions to poach Colin Cowherd (from ESPN) and Doug Gottlieb (from CBS Sports) for TV/radio simulcast talk shows on FS1 and FOX Sports Radio. Why spend more money and have to pre-empt Cowherd and Gottlieb 42 days each year?

Dont know who thinks sublisencing is out “fashion”. Its business.. plain and simple… turner broadcasting the uefacl on their own makes NO Sense… but this does make sense to sublicense this to ESPN for access to some of thier property rights… i dont see Turner as the HOME of the Champions League!!

This is reslly less about soccer rights and turner getting leverage to access other sports rights that are more US centric

Don’t see the rationale at all. They already have MLB playoffs, NBA playoffs, NCAA tourney and Final Four and PGA Championship. Their portfolio is strong and they are not going to be able parlay a UEFA sub-licensing agreement to get access to any sports of any greater prestige than what they already have (e.g. NFL, Big Five College Football, Masters).

Just like when NBC added the premier league with no history of covering soccer, they are adding to their existing sports portfolio to bring new eyeballs to their networks with what they see as a growing audience that falls into the most desired demographic. I think you are trying to read too much into it. Turner will be home to the Champions League for at least three years.

i think it is a bad idea that Turner will get the broadcast rights they have no experience with European football but money talks and everything else walks . NBC would have been ideal as they have that EPL experience from 2013

Turner Sports has been hungry and has been looking for a sports product with “young” demographics to anchor truTV for years.

Having 1 week of NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament games on truTV is NOT enough. truTV needs another sports TV product.

Furthermore, Turner Sports lost out on the last round of bidding for “power 5” U.S. College sports conferences.

The UEFA Champions League will allow truTV to have a unique sports TV product of its own.

One would expect Turner to put the #1 match of each day, i.e. Barcelona, Real Madrid, or big English clubs on truTV.

Turner Sports has 3 English-language channels to put UEFA Champions League games: truTV, TBS, and TNT. By using the world feed with London-based announcers (either the current incumbent Input Media, or another company), Turner can take 3 games and put them straight through on 3 channels, all with wide distribution of at least 90 million U.S. TV households.

As for studio talent, both on-air and off-air:

Turner has a long history (going back at least 10 years) of flying in Miami-based talent to CNN Center to work in Spanish on a freelance basis to present its daily sports news program Deportes CNN when the regular in-house talent are not available due to assignments on the road.

One would expect a certain struggling (in terms of subscribers and advertisers) Miami-based sports TV to lose a handful of English-speaking talent to Turner in time for the start of 2018 UEFA Champions League.

However, one should NOT expect a certain former Canadian anchor of CNN International World Sport to be involved. The infamous Lara Baldessara left CNN in 2016. Readers may remember her from her days of butchering names on FOX Soccer Report when she was working from CKND-TV (Canwest Global) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Based on industry sources, she was NOT missed by her colleagues when she left Canwest Global, and she allegedly made a LOT of enemies at her next stop, Rogers Sportsnet in Toronto, before she moved to the U.S. to work for Golf Channel and CNN.

The following is one way Turner Sports can present the UEFA CL in English starting August 2018:

– Use 2 channels, for a total of 4 games on each Tuesday and Wednesday (two time slots per day, at 1pm and 3pm ET when the clocks in the U.S. are in sync with the clocks in Europe), or 8 games total on each group stage “Match Day”.

– The primary channel will be truTV, with the best games featuring the biggest stars. That means Real Madrid, Barcelona, and whichever English club is hot at the moment. Otherwise, Manchester United will have priority over the other English clubs.

– The secondary channel will be HLN (formerly Headline News.)

– No matches on TBS or TNT, neither of which needs UEFA CL coverage because both TBS and TNT already have enough sports and both already have high-enough subscriber fees.

– The 4 games not shown on truTV or HLN will be online streaming only, whether via Turner’s own platforms such as Bleacher Report, or via sublicense to the highest bidder i.e. BAMTech (formerly Major League Baseball Advanced Media), Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc.

– World feed announcers for ALL matches. No need for Turner to reinvent the wheel. Turner operates NBA TV for the NBA on the cheap by using regional sports network feed announcers instead of sending its own commentators. Turner can employ the same announcer strategy for its UEFA CL coverage by using world feeds exclusively.

– Studio show in Atlanta with a young host (under 35, most likely a male, preferably with previous experience with anchoring studio shows for international soccer matches) acting as a “traffic cop” for 2 pundits with previous experience playing in the UEFA CL. Again, Turner already employs this method for NBA TV. Plenty of affordable, U.S.-based talent to fill these 3 studio chairs already exist.

If Turner Sports were to hire an “in-house” candidate to be the studio host for its UEFA CL coverage, such a candidate does exist.

English-American sports TV presenter Kate Riley was hired by CNN in June 2016 to anchor World Sport on CNN International. She replaced the infamous Canadian Lara Baldesarra.

Riley was born in Bakersfield, California to an English father and and American mother. She holds a Master’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from Cardiff University in Wales, Prior to joining CNN, she worked at Al Jazzera Sports (Doha, Qatar), FOX Sports Australia, Sky Sports News UK, Premier League Productions/IMG Sports Media.

Despite being born in the U.S., Riley presents with an English accent, as she was educated in the U.K.

Below is a CNN International promo video clip of Kate Riley, from the set of World Sport at CNN Center in Atlanta:

This need more channels that turner need more support like TNT, Tbs, Trutv, Hln and CNN or launch the network so it more easier to connect the sports channel and getting ready for upcoming Uefa soccer on turner in 2018.

The univision it will be a lot of fun of get the uefa soccer and the new era to connect with the fans of soccer and the channels like univision , unimas, galavison and Udn. they are get ready for uefa soccer 2018